146 Guardian, 15 Jan. 2005: http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,1389500,00.html.
147 The text of our letter, drafted by the Bishop of Oxford, was as follows:
Dear Prime Minister,
We write as a group of scientists and Bishops to express our concern about the teaching of science in the Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead. Evolution is a scientific theory of great explanatory power, able to account for a wide range of phenomena in a number of disciplines. It can be refined, confirmed and even radically altered by attention to evidence. It is not, as spokesmen for the college maintain, a 'faith position' in the same category as the biblical account of creation which has a different function and purpose.
The issue goes wider than what is currently being taught in one college. There is a growing anxiety about what will be taught and how it will be taught in the new generation of proposed faith schools. We believe that the curricula in such schools, as well as that of Emmanuel City Technical College, need to be strictly monitored in order that the respective disciplines of science and religious studies are properly respected. Yours sincerely
148 British Humanist Association News, March-April 2006.
149 Observer, 22 July 2004: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,1258506,00.html.
Consciousness-raising again
150 The Oxford Dictionary takes 'gay' back to American prison slang in 1935. In 1955 Peter Wildeblood, in his famous book Against the Law, found it necessary to define 'gay' as 'an American euphemism for homosexual'.
151 http://uepengland.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=184&mode=linear.
Religious education as a part of literary culture
152 Shaheen has written three books, anthologizing biblical references in the comedies, tragedies and histories separately. The summary count of 1,300 is mentioned in http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/StritmatterShaheenRev.htm.
153 http://www.bibleliteracy.org/Secure/Documents/BibleLiteracyReport2005.pdf.
Chapter 10: A much needed gap?
Consolation
154 From memory, I attribute this argument to the Oxford philosopher Derek Parfitt. I have not researched its origins thoroughly because I am using it only as a passing example of philosophical consolation.
155 Reported by BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/special_report/1999/06/99/cardinal_hume_funeral/376263.stm.
The mother of all burkas
156 Wolpert (1992).
Index
A for Andromeda (Hoyle), 72
Aaron, 244-5
Abbott, Edwin, 372
Abimelech, King of Gerar, 242
abortion, 60, 291-8
Abraham, 36, 241-3, 251, 265
absolutism, 232, 286-8, 293-4
abuse: mental, 317-25, 325, 337; physical, 315-18, 321
Achilles and the tortoise, 81-2
Adam and Eve, 251-3
Adams, Douglas, 20, 104, 116-17, 364
Adams, John, 40, 43, 45, 97
Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (Toland), 274
advertising, 163-4
Affirmations (Kurtz), 361
Afghanistan, 287
Agnew, L. R., 299
agnosticism, 2, 46–54, 109
AIDS, 288, 289, 290, 291
Alberts, Bruce, 101
Alexander, Cecil Frances, 31
Allah, 31, 186, 213
Allen, Woody, 118-19
altruism, 216-21
American Heart Journal, 63
American Theocracy (Phillips), 286
Amish, 329-31
Amnesty International, 326
Ampleforth, Abbot of, 356
Angier, Natalie, 43-4
Animal Liberation (Singer), 271
Annunciation (Raphael), 86
Anselm of Canterbury, 80-4
Anstey, R, 180
'Answers in Genesis', 101
anthropic principle: cosmological version, 141-51; planetary version, 134-41
Antonelli, Cardinal, 313
Antrim, Earls of, 261
apostasy, 287-8
Aquinas, Thomas, 77–80, 107, 150, 320-1
argument, author's central, 157-8
arguments for the existence of God: Aquinas' 'proofs', 77–80, 107; Bayesian, 105-9; comical, 85; cosmological, 77; from admired religious scientists, 97-103; from beauty, 86-7; from degree, 78-9; from design, 79, 107; from personal 'experience', 87–92; from personal incredulity, 128, 129; from scripture, 92-7; ontological, 80-5, 107; Pascal's wager, 103-5
Arian heresy, 33
Army of God, 295
art, 200n
astronomers, 55-7
atheism: attitudes to death, 357n; George Bush Sr's view of, 43; consciousness-raising messages, 1–4; conversion to, 5–6; Founding Fathers, 39, 43; fundamentalist, 282; Hitler and Stalin, 272-8; hostility to religion, 281-2; numbers of atheists, 4–5; pride in, 3–4; view of God's existence, 50-1, 109
Atheism: A Very Short Introduction (Baggini), 13
Atheist Universe (Mills), 44, 84
Atkins, Peter, 64, 118
atonement, 252, 253
Atran, Scott, 36, 177, 184
Attenborough, David, 119, 202-5, 335
Attila the Hun, 269
Augustine, 132, 251-2
Augustus Caesar, 93, 94
Aunger, Robert, 196
Australian aboriginal tribes, 165
Australopithecus afarensis, 301
Baal, 31, 53, 104, 244, 245-6
babblers, 219
bacteria: flagellar motor, 130-2; TTSS, 131-2
Badawi, Zaki, 25
Baggini, Julian, 13
baptism, 311-15
barchan, 370-1
Baring, Maurice, 298, 299
Barker, Dan, 324-5
Barrett, James, 295
Barrett, Justin, 184
Barrow, John, 135
Barth, Bob, 66
bats, 217, 372, 373
Baudouin I, King of the Belgians, 59-60
Bayes' Theorem, 105-8
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 86, 108, 298-9
Behe, Michael, 129-31, 133
Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin, 100, 102
beliefs, false, 355-6
Bell, Paul, 103
Belloc, Hilaire, 298
Benson, Herbert, 62-3, 65
Bentham, Jeremy, 232, 297
Berlinerblau, Jacques, 95
Bethea, Charles, 63
Bethlehem, 93, 94
Betjeman, John, 11n, 41, 261
Bhagavad Gita, 344
Bible, 57, 237, 327, 340-3; see also New Testament, Old Testament
Bible Literacy Report, 344
Bierce, Ambrose, 60
'big crunch', 145
bin Laden, Osama, 303-4, 306
Binker, 347-9
Biophilia (Wilson), 361
Black Gang, The ('Sapper'), 266
black holes, 146
Blackmore, Susan, 193, 196
Blair, Tony, 303, 331, 334, 335, 336
Blaker, Kimberly, 288
Blank Slate, The (Pinker), 228
blasphemy, 286-8
Bletchley Park, 289
Blind Watchmaker, The (Dawkins), 372
Bloom, Paul, 179, 180, 183, 184
Boeing 747, 113, 122, 139, 141, 151,157
Bohr, Niels, 365n
Bondi, Hermann, 281
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 125
Bouquet, A. C, 269
Bowen, Charles, 343
Boyd, Robert, 196
Boyer, Pascal, 36, 177-8, 184
Boykin, William G., 288
Brahma, 33, 213
brain: evolution of, 179, 366-7, 371; 'god centre' in, 168-9
Bray, Michael, 238, 294-5, 297
Breaking the Spell (Dennett), 230,352
Brer Rabbit, 68-9
Brief History of Time, A (Hawking), 13